While much of the secrecy behind Sony Pictures' 2012 franchise relaunch The Amazing Spider-Man, starring Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone and directed by Marc Webb ((500) Days of Summer), is peeling away with the launch of the first teaser trailer, not a lot was known about the movie's villain other than it would be Dr. Curt Connors aka The Lizard and that he'd be played by Rhys Ifans.

Hailing from Wales, Ifans is an actor who has been around for many years, having gotten his first big break when he co-starred in Notting Hill with Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant. Since then, he's appeared in dozens of movies and played Luna Lovegood's father in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

SuperHeroHype got one of the few exclusive interviews with Ifans at this year's Comic-Con, which seemed appropriate since we were also one of the few to interview Thomas Haden Church a few years back for Spider-Man 3. (What can we say? We love the bad guys… what's Spider-Man without a great rogues gallery?)

Enjoy the exclusive video interview below where we talked to Ifans about getting the role and how he developed the character, including his study of actual lizards in order to portray the film's CG-created monster villain.